His group focuses on applications in cell biology, including the study of viral infections and viral replication where fluorescence may be used to pinpoint areas worthy of enhanced investigation. Also of particular interest is the field of vascular biology and the mechanism via which vascular endothelial cells initiate repair in response to injury and inflammation.

His goal is to localize molecular structures in cells using fluorescence microscopy and then transfer the sample to a cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) set up to image the corresponding macromolecular structures in 3D with nm-scale resolution.

The group wanted a cryo-FM sestup that was easy to implement and selected the THMS600 heating and freezing stage which was modified in order to accommodate EM support grids.

Professor Koster says, “before we found the Linkam system in the literature and the ability to correlate microscopies, combining modalities was next to impossible. We have now been using this cryo-CLEM method for more than three years. It has certainly enabled us to produce results quickly and hence get to publication more rapidly too.” (European Journal of Cell Biology 88 (2009) 669–684).